Flights to NZ discount?

knightstyle

We are planning on visiting family in NZ in 2020. Will avoid school holidays etc. but wondered if anyone has tips on reducing the price of the tickets? Discount codes?
Would like business class, any upgrade tips?
Thanks for looking.

malkie76

Discount codes are commonly user unique (ie only a work for that passenger and issued for good will). Sometimes you might get a £100 off around Christmas, and often there are sales immediately after Christmas.

Points upgrades are notoriously difficult on that route from the UK, but check roughly a year ahead and you might be lucky. Exact tips (eg 1am T355) will be specific to each airline so worth checking on FlyerTalk.

AirChina are one of the more affordable business class tickets out to NZ and offer a decent service. Also consider starting exEU with other providers to unlock massive savings, but do plan contingency.

Also check regularly for your preferred dates as revenue management is a funny beast. This year we went to Orlando and wanted business seats - kept checking daily and it was £3k all the time, but then dropped to £1.8k on a random day for no obvious reason. Booked them, and saw the price back up at £3k the next day.

Alan_Bowen

The lowest fares are usually immediately after Easter until the end of June, so autumn in NZ. In the UK most airlines announce discount fares starting in the next week or so, so watch out. The cheapest fares are often the longest routes, fine if you are fit and healthy, less so if you just want to get there as quickly as possible. Virgin Atlantic and Air New Zealand sometimes have good fares flying via Shanghai and ANZ are closing down the London route altogether next autumn so may have good fares via Los Angeles.

headpin

Virgin Atlantic’s sale has started today (Tuesday 17th Dec). Not sure whether they have anything of interest, but worth a look, perhaps?